Last night I ran a 5k race, the last time I ran at an organised event It was 100k over 2 days. It felt very different!
Short is about energy & speed.
Long is about consistency & endurance.
These are two very different distances that need different approaches.
They also have different impacts on your mind and body.
There are interesting parallels between running and working in a digital business.
Short is a quick fix, required to maintain momentum.
Long is more strategic, ensuring long term business goals are delivered.
Short
A last minute promotion to hit your monthly sales target
// Bringing sales forward from future months
A developer implementing a quick bug fix
// Bloating the code of application that will all need to be re-written eventually
Building an email with all images because the HTML won’t render correctly
// Your deliverability might take a hit over time
Long
Choosing the right candidate despite their long notice period
// Leaves a short-term gap in resources that you need to cover
Taking time to plan out the next 12-24 months
// You can’t be so focused on the day to day whilst doing this
Building out a set of brand guidelines for your business
// Your current branding quickly feels dated and out of touch
There’s often no right or wrong approach to some of the challenges above.
The skill to develop is an understanding of the impact of what you are doing and implications that it might have.
Sometimes you need to pause, breathe, think and that gives you the headspace to consider the implications.
